Agroecosystem Nutrient Cycling
How agricultural management practices affect the movement of nitrogen and carbon through soil-water systems. Current and recent work includes a USDA-FSA-funded study of soil carbon response to grazing on CRP land, and NSF-EPSCoR-supported research on microbiomes across aquatic, plant, and soil systems.
Water Quality & Climate Variability
Linking weather extremes — “weather whiplash” between drought and heavy precipitation — to nutrient loss from agricultural watersheds and degradation of drinking water sources. This theme grew out of long-term stream nitrate monitoring in Midwest agricultural watersheds (published in Biogeochemistry, 2017) and continues through NSF-funded work on connections between aquatic microbiomes and water quality degradation.
Soil Greenhouse Gas Dynamics
Soil oxygen, methane, and nitrous oxide fluxes across managed and restored landscapes, including constructed and natural wetlands. The lab has used high-frequency soil oxygen sensors to predict greenhouse gas emissions from wetland restorations, and serves as the analytical lab for aquatic gas and ion tracer analyses for NEON's aquatic observation network.
Soil Carbon Assessment
Measuring and predicting soil organic carbon stocks and their depth distribution across managed landscapes. This theme traces back to the USDA Rapid Carbon Assessment (RaCA) project — a modern soil carbon baseline for the conterminous United States — and continues today through work on soil organic carbon depth distribution patterns across the US Midwest.
Funding
Research in the Applied Biogeochemistry Lab has been supported by the National Science Foundation, USDA (FSA, NRCS, NIFA), NEON/Battelle, and other federal and foundation sources.